BiodataHal Hill is the H.W. Arndt Professor of Southeast Asian Economies in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. From 1986 to 1998 he headed the University’s Indonesia Project and for much of this time also edited the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies.

His general research interests are the economies of ASEAN, especially Indonesia and The Philippines; industrialization and foreign investment in East Asia; and Australia’s economic relations with the Asia-Pacific region.

He is the author or editor of 14 books and has written about 140 academic papers and book chapters. Titles include The Indonesian Economy since 1966 (Cambridge University Press, 1996; 2nd edition, 2000), Indonesia’s Industrial Transformation (ISEAS, Singapore, and Allen & Unwin, 1997), and The Philippine Economy (co-edited with Arsenio Balisacan, Oxford University Press, 2003). Current and recent book projects include a textbook on the ASEAN economies, a collection of papers on the ASEAN economies, edited volumes on regional development dynamics in the Philippines, the economy of East Timor, and foreign investment in the Asia-Pacific. Recent paper topics include the Indonesian economy a decade after the crisis, regional development in East Asia, Indonesian industrialization, and the political economy of reform in Southeast Asia.

He is an occasional OP-ED contributor to several Australian and Asian newspapers and magazines. He has worked as a consultant for the Australian Government, the Indonesian Government, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and several United Nations agencies, in addition to participating in conferences/seminars in some 25 countries. He has held visiting appointments at Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia the University of the Philippines, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, the University of Oxford, UK , the Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam, Columbia University, USA and Institute of Malaysian & International Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. He is also on the editorial board of 14 academic journals.

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International Affairs Forum on US-Malaysia Relations in an Obama Administration

By H. E. James R. Keith

19 November 2008, Conference Room, ISIS Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

BiodataJames Keith was sworn in as the United States Ambassador to Malaysia on July 24. He was nominated by President Bush on April 25, 2007, and confirmed by the Senate on May 25. Previously he was the Deputy Coordinator of the State Department’s Avian Influenza Action Group, a body designed to respond to and prepare for the threat of avian and pandemic influenza. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau at the U.S. Department of State in Washington until August 2006. Prior to becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary, Mr. Keith was Consul General of the United States of America in Hong Kong from August 2002 to April 2005. Before serving in Hong Kong, Mr. Keith was the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Keith is a career Foreign Service Officer. He served numerous tours of duty in Washington working on Asian Affairs, and has also served at the U.S. Embassies in Beijing, Jakarta and Seoul. In addition to his Foreign Service postings, Mr. Keith was a member of the National Security Council under President Bush in the early 1990s and President Clinton in the late 1990s.

Mr. Keith was born in Roanoke, Virginia. While he was growing up he lived in Tokyo, Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Taipei. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980 after graduating with a B.A. degree in English from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He has studied Mandarin Chinese, Korean and Malay.

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ISIS National Affairs Forum on Islam and the Future of Inter-Ethnic Relations in Malaysia

By DR. CHANDRA MUZAFFAR

11 June 2008, Conference Room, ISIS Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

BiodataDr. Chandra Muzaffar is both a social activist and an academic. He is President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), an international NGO based in Malaysia, which seeks to critique global injustice and to develop an alternative vision of a just and compassionate civilization guided by universal spiritual and moral values. Chandra also sits on the board of a number of international NGOs concerned with social justice and civilizational dialogue.

Chandra is also the Noordin Sopiee Professor of Global Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang.

He has published extensively on civilisational dialogue, international politics, religion, human rights and Malaysian society. The author and editor of 20 books in English and Malay, many of his writings have been translated into other languages. Among Chandra’s major publications are Protector (1979); Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia (1987); Human Rights and the New World Order (1993), Rights, Religion and Reform and Global Ethic or Global Hegemony? (2005).

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International Affairs Forum: U.S.-Malaysia Relations Under the New U.S. Administration

By H.E. Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat

21 November 2008, Kuala Lumpur

BiodataAmbassador Eizenstat is an influential person in US politics and is likely to be a senior advisor to the new US administration.

During a decade and a half of public service in three US administrations, Ambassador Eizenstat has held a number of key senior positions, including chief White House domestic policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981); U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration (1993-2001).

He currently heads the international practice of the firm of Covington & Burling LLP. His work at Covington focuses on resolving international trade problems and business disputes with the US and foreign governments, and international business transactions and regulations on behalf of US companies and others around the world.

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International Affairs Forum: What Policy Should Malaysia Pursue in an Environment of High Inflation and Low Growth

By Professor Dr. Takatoshi Ito

28 November 2008, ISIS Conference Room, Kuala Lumpur

BiodataProfessor Takatoshi Ito, the fourth holder of the Tun Ismail Ali Chair, is an internationally renowned professor from the Graduate School of Economics and Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo. Prof. Ito is an expert in the fields of International Finance, Open Macroeconomics and also the Japanese Economy. Upon the completion of his Ph.D. in economics from the Harvard University, Prof. Ito has taught extensively both in the United States and Japan.

He has taught at the University of Minnesota and the Kennedy School of Government in the University of Harvard. Prof. Ito was also appointed as the Deputy Vice Minister for International Affairs in the Ministry of Finance, Japan from July 1999 to July 2001. Besides that he is also the President of the Japanese Economic Association (2004) and a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy in Japan (2006-current).

Some of Prof. Ito’s more prominent works include The Japanese Economy (MIT Press, 1992), The Political Economy of the Japanese Monetary Policy, and Financial Policy and Central Banking in Japan (both with T. Cargill and M. Hutchison, MIT Press, in 1997 and 2000 respectively), and An Independent and Accountable IMF (with J. De Gregorio, B. Eichengreen, and C. Wyplosz, 1999). He has contributed articles in journals like the Econometrica, American Economic Review, and Journal of Monetary Economics. His research interest includes capital flows and currency crises, microstructures of the foreign exchange rates, and inflation targeting. He also contributes frequently to Financial Times, Nihon Keizai Shinbun, and Toyo Keizai Weekly.

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International Affairs Forum: “The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World Is Turning Away From the West and Rediscovering China”

By Dr Ben Simpfendorfer

7 August 2009, ISIS Conference Room, Kuala Lumpur

BiodataDr Simpfendorfer was formerly Senior China Economist for JPMorgan, also based in Hong Kong. He speaks Arabic and Chinese, and has lived in Beirut, Damascus, Beijing, and Hong Kong. He appears regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC and his editorials have appeared in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and The National. He has spent the last fifteen years observing the rise of China and the Middle East, and the past three years conducting research in such cities as Beijing, Cairo, and Riyadh for his book “The New Silk Road”. Simpfendorfer has a postgraduate degree from London University and an undergraduate degree from Melbourne University.

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